


breakthrough

by en passant (corinthian)



Series: /brāk/ [3]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 00:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3708037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s funny, the things he remembers after his homeland burned to the ground.</p><p>--</p><p>What’s greater, a sister’s success or a brother’s grief? We’ve all lost something, and Heartland’s embers have long gone out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	breakthrough

It’s funny, the things he remembers after his homeland burned to the ground. He remembers the smell of slightly burned pancakes — because Ruri never remembers to wipe the frypan clean between batches, so the oil gets acrid and singes and the smell lingers even if he oversleeps and almost misses breakfast — she always keeps a stack of them, for him, tucked away under a tea towel in the oven set to warm. It’s one of the signs, in a dream, that he’s truly dreaming because even though every other kind of fire has become one single terrible stench: charred flesh, oil, burned buildings — when he dreams of happier times, this stays consistent.

(The first month, he couldn’t stop the dreams from breaking into each other. He would be at the breakfast table, or reaching into the oven, or laughing with his sister and then the ceiling would collapse, their parents would be screaming, sometimes he would be frozen at his chair, or eating mechanically. Explosion. Bite. They’re fleeing. Chew. The streets are empty. Swallow. Then he would wake and feel as though home — the _memory_ of home — wasn’t something to mourn but to expel from his body.

The vomiting never made him feel cleaner.)

Shun remembers swing sets, of all things. Sometimes, after they’ve been running for days and have finally stopped to rest his legs feel wobbly like the ground doesn’t exist at all and he’s struck with the idea that _this is how it felt_. He knows it’s wrong, because he rarely swung, he usually pushed Ruri and she would always say: Higher, higher, take me even higher.

The numbness in his legs never spreads to his heart but he can’t say it out loud either. Everything hurts.

(At the very least, at the very most, Ute is with him.)

—

Shun believes in moving forward, because there’s nothing to return to. He doesn’t need to explain it, not to Ute who’s been with him the whole time, but sometimes it catches between them and threatens to break.

“We can return to that time,” Ute says, even though they both know it’s not a reassurance anymore. Shun doesn’t have time for that kind of empty promise because _that time_ doesn’t exist unless Ruri is there, too. “When everyone was happy.”

And Ute says _everyone_ as if Heartland hasn’t become worse than a ghost town. Their last hideout had been their school, the chemistry classroom. The one that everyone had once hated, because it was in the corner and didn’t have enough windows and a large section of the room was devoted to bunsen burners and cabinets of chemicals. But they had been relieved, almost ecstatic. Finally, a place with a roof that didn’t have a direct sightline from the road. A place with supplies. With a fire escape. 

The only drawback was that it was a large classroom and every word they spoke echoed and reminded him — reminded them — that their number continued to dwindle. When Shun woke gasping from dreams of fragmented falling, his breathing echoed and bounced back to him and it was too easy to lose himself in the panic.

He comforted him by thinking that it must be worse for Ute, who always wakes from nightmares silently and lost in the muffled noise of the world with nothing to remind him that others were still there.

He has to believe that he’ll find her again, because otherwise what’s the point?

—

No one had ever been as alive as Ruri. Of course, his bias was well known. It’s a spike of irony, in how _before_ he understood the magnitude of life through her. When he had been young, too young to really understand, and his parents had said: We’re bringing you home a sister and he hadn’t understood exactly what that meant.

Then, she had come home and she had been small and ugly and defenseless and what was the _point_ of babies, even? But then she had grabbed onto his finger and giggled and he couldn’t help but feel like something important had happened.

That was all he remembered of those early years. Sometimes, Shun wonders if that’s because the invasion and the burning and the screaming and running had eaten through his mind and corroded his memories. The longer he was apart from his parents — they weren’t dead, maybe, probably, possibly, they might still be alive — the less he remembered of their mannerisms. Often, he feels as though there’s a certain moment he’s forgotten, some key to the _then_.

If he could remember then he could also wish to return to that time. It’s a better to think he’s forgotten something vital than believe that there’s no return. It’s better to think: once I’ve gotten it again, then we can all go home.

On the coldest nights, though, he realizes there’s no return. When he, instead of Ute, wakes silently and alone Shun realizes that he could give up.

Instead, he moves forward.

—

Ute says, “She’s not Ruri.”

But Shun saw her with his own eyes. It’s impossible for her not to be Ruri. From the sound of her voice to the way she held herself — poised but solid — everything was _Ruri._

“Ruri would never learn Fusion with a smile on her face.” Ute says. And that burns down his throat like swallowing an ember. That’s true, it has to be true or maybe she _wasn’t_ learning Fusion, that could have been a mistake, couldn’t it have been? The thoughts run into each other in his head and he scowls, shoves at Ute in an attempt to clear his mind.

There’s too many things in the way, he’s so close to finding her.

“How can you be certain?” He spits it, because he’s angry. He’s angry because it feels like again they’ve run into a wall — or again, the walls are closing in, it’s the same thing. They’re always playing from the defensive, even in this city.

“We’ll find her together,” Ute promises in the heavy way that they’ve both gotten used to doing.

Their lives are on the line, after all.

— 

He loses time.

It’s funny, the things he remembers after he ‘joins’ Reiji’s Lancers. The fragments of _then_ dull and fade and he’s no longer sure which _then_ he should be reaching towards. It’s funny, because he meets with Reiji and eventually there’s a doctor and eventually he’s told there’s a cluster of glass in his chest from a broken window he doesn’t remember shattering and some day the shards will migrate through his muscle and into his lungs and he’ll die.

It’s only after he’s told that that he remembers he’s already lost so many companions but even as he holds onto the thought — where’s Ute? — the girl who he remembers isn’t Ruri because she uses Fusion enters and distracts Reiji.

Shun catches the sideways look Reiji gives him, far too satisfied and knowing and once again Shun loses track of what was on his mind. It seems like the answer is there, and if he could just remember exactly who he was missing then he’d be fine.

(But even as he thinks that, some part of his chest twists tightly — maybe he doesn’t want to remember that at all.)

—

Serena pulls him along by the hand. They’re hunting Academia invaders to keep the city safe. That much is easy, it feels like he’s been doing it his whole life. She smiles at him over her shoulder and he remembers that she’s his most important person in the world.

_We have to protect the smiles from that time._

Something catches his attention, a flicker of color in the alleyway and even though she’s still tugging him down the sidewalk he wants to pursue it.

“Really, Shun, you need to stop daydreaming.” Serena rolls her eyes and sticks her tongue out at him and it’s really too juvenile for her, it doesn’t suit her at all but he can’t help but feel a little pleased. They could be happy, really.

Then they walk right into a trap and a powerful monster warps into existence. She smiles at him. Something is burning. The acrid smell of scorched oil cuts through him.

—

(He has to mourn, again. He sheds the present fake self like an old jacket, rips it from his shoulders and throws it, howling, at Akaba Reiji.

Shun’s not certain if he’s more angry for having lost and lost and lost again or for being fed a small spoonful of happiness and wanting to keep it. His traitorous heart cracks and cracks again because he remembers.

Breathing becomes difficult.)

—

“You’re bleeding into your lungs. But I suppose our contract has just become void.” It’s just like Reiji to get the last laugh. “Why don’t we go together, then?” Even if Shun had the strength to strangle him, he’ll be stopped.

“Kurosaki!” It’s Sakaki Yuuya who intervenes. Of course it is. It’s Sakaki Yuuya who wears an expression like Ute’s and protests, even if his own anger is clearly visible. “You can’t just kill him! You won’t be any better than him or — or the Academia! We’re not murderers!”

If he felt like arguing with him Shun would point out that he already swallowed that idea, years ago. It’s not being the same, the dog that bites the hand waving the club as it is being the one doing the swinging. Instead he relents, sits back and finds the entire situation bordering on obscene.

It might be the way his hands shake or how his breath comes in bubbles. He thinks, he’ll finally be free of everything that’s wretched and if he shuts his eyes he’ll be able to see his companions. He’ll see Ute’s somewhat disapproving but welcoming smile — they had once promised each other not to go hurrying into death, after all, but who broke that first? He’ll see his parents, his neighbors, even his terrible old math teacher.

Really, when Shun shuts his eyes and takes another labored breath he sees his sister. She says, “What are you doing, giving up, Nii-san!”

For a moment he can actually hear her. So he opens his eyes and he can still see her and he might be the happiest he’s been in three years.

“Don’t you dare smile like an idiot.”

The illusion is gone and Hiiragi Yuzu returns from the Synchro Dimension. Her triumphant silhouette is too far from what he remembers of Ruri — what he pieced back together. But then she crosses the distance between them and says, simply, “I remember.”

Panic arcs down his spine because his lungs are heavy and his chest hurts and Reiji was right, of course, he’s going to die.

“Don’t die on me, don’t die on me.” Yuzu — _Ruri_ says and he wonders how he could have gotten it wrong again. “We’re going home, together!” It’s a demand and he would move mountains and cross dimensions to do anything for her.

But pain and blood steal his last words.

The worst part of it, really, is that she isn’t smiling at all and that’s the last thing he sees.


End file.
